amendment number 12. >> colburn amendment number 12, please. [inaudible] >> let me explain to you i look at health care i.t. and there's no question we we need it and it's quite a help. the bill wasn't allowed on till 2011. why is that? there's no interoperable standard that's completed. we all want interoperable standard. if you want to save lives and cut costs to mauro you will vote for this amendment. let me explain why. under the into a kickback a hospital in a big city is prohibited from using their computer software giving that to the providers would it be radiologists or family practitioners or surgeons or obstetricians their purchasing power especially groups of hospitals and chains of costa was tremendous. they have the latest of their. if tomorrow there is no antikickback on just this section where they could share their software with all the doctors that practice after hospital you would automatically bring 50% of the hospital physician practice in this country up to the latest level of interoperable. you also would make them interop

clec senator colburn, i disagree with senator colburn on a lot of social issues but he is fantastic. i would vote for him early and often if i had a chance. he's been a real tiger in court.

>> senator colburn? >> the thing everybody doesn't want to talk about is whether we want the government practicing medicine, and we said we don't, but then we hear the administration say yes, we do. we are going to use this information with which to make coverage decisions and treatment decisions so either we are or we aren't and there isn't a plan our word and prohibit. that doesn't deny the dissemination of this information. it doesn't deny the actual beginning of knowledge from the spread of good research that might cause us to save money. but there's a big difference between wanting to save money and rationing care and that is what we are talking about. rationing care because cms will use the information to limit the availability of new and advanced techniques to save people's lives, to extend their lives to increase the quality of their lives because it saves money. and that is what the state is all about. it is about whether cns kits to practice medicine. and the intent of the administration has st

clec senator colburn, i disagree with senator colburn on a lot of social issues but he is fantastic. i would vote for him early and often if i had a chance. he's been a real tiger in court. he understands what the problem is. he was apprised of some of the history of this nomination, and he did the right thing. more power to him. >> after senator mccaskill's comment, senator levin was breathing some of the press about he thought the nomination hearing has gone, what was going to happen in the next two months. and he very clearly criticized her for speaking out. >> i think of for the senator was senator mccain. >> no, it wasn't john cornyn. mccain folded like he often does. >> a little bit of positive news. i briefed the senator mccaskill on some of this. and she told me, she said i don't know how long i'm going to be in washington. i'm from missouri. i'm a democrat from missouri, we are in danger. she said if i can change 1% of that, the gop, and she also had just gotten a new ad hoc committee on federal contracting and she said she is ready to take the two by four out. so we hope th

i might add senator casey, if he wanted to -- while we're weighing for senator colburn to show up -- >> mr. chairman, before you go to that, since these are the last few amendments that we have on our title and we really do have to finish it so we can move everybody on to the next process, is senator colburn's staff ready to tell us which amendments that we are so we can limit ourselves to that, know what we're debating here? that would be very helpful for when he's going to show. >> i asked him that, if he'll amend the question; he wasn't quite sure. there are a number of coburn amendments. there are four he wanted us to offer # i'm not sure which four. >> do we know what time the senator will be here, especially since i've defending this title, what time i need to be here for? >> he'll be here in a minute. i just thought it might be another filler. as soon as he shows up we'll stop. in order to use is time here in a fashion. we'll ask senator casey to give us opening thoughts on the abuse and fraud section. so we'll complete that part of the process. once we complete the four amend

turns out justice kennedy also was pushing, but as you can hear in a rather a deft way, katherine colburn said i will get to your point and i will argue the pennsylvania statute but i want to get back to the standard by which she meant what standard are we going to sustain roe versus wade and the argument went that way throughout and justice kennedy also jumped in with a similar kind of attempt to push culbert back on to the specifics. >> your are doing there's a fundamental right -- [inaudible] [inaudible] >> well, indeed -- [inaudible] under that standard there is no dispute -- [inaudible] statutory positions did not necessarily cut to improve versus wade. >> if this court was to change -- [inaudible] that will undercut roe versus wade, to abandon -- [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] >> as you can see, the pattern set early continued. i should mention to be fair there were two other lawyers arguing in this case in the chapter that i wrote to deals briefly with them, but the performance of catherine i think ultimately proved worth of her choice because she did shape the conversation th

president that cares about reproductive rights and so, while it was high risk in the sense of catherine colburn may have lost the outcome it was not a political risk because either way they were going to have the kind of political argument they fashioned going in. >> that part of casey's or unusual. i would think there were two goals being pursued by the attorney. are there other instances where the lawyers arguing the case have a goal beyond the litigation that is being deliberate. >> most of the time when the case gets in the supreme court it's rare because the court gets something like 8,000 petitions and decide 75. i think most lawyers understand what they are doing is not simply getting a resolution of a fight between party a and b. another case that occurs was the 2005 decision in which the court validated taking away the woman's home and connecticut said they could build a big economic different the was going to support the pfizer pharmaceutical giant. in that case it was clear both sides went into the argument not only hoping to win this litigation between these parties but to establish

. >> what should happen here is exactly what senator colburn has been talking about which is that if this money is appropriate, if this is needed it should be a priority event. you should get it as part of your discretionary cap. $8 billion goes on this exercise of prevention and it comes out of some other account so that we're not adding it to the debt. there's no reason not to prioritize and make these hard decisions because if we failed to do that in this area, we'll fail it to do it in another area and we'll fail to do it in another area and we'll end up with $1 trillion or $2 trillion of unfunded expenditures which go right to the debt. >> very good. let me turn to senator enzi, and i appreciate the comments. >> i think the question is really do we consider prevention and wellness important enough? important enough, that we fund it without having to compete against the demands of chronic disease and illness and all of the other things that we put money into. if you don't think so, then you support getting rid of all of this, but if you think it is that important to begin to chan

colburn from oklahoma who will be joining tomorrow. last call, where are you from? >> caller: [inaudible] >> host: go ahead, frank. >> caller: i would like to ask mr. gingrey -- >> host: we can hear you, go ahead. >> caller: i would like to ask mr. gingrey [inaudible] they pushed it through and how we get a democrat

that's medicaid, medicare, colburn and schip even though we pay for medicare taxes we still don't participate. >> host: why is that? >> guest: we are a territory. when you come from territory things are different and i certainly want that to change and we are willing to carry the burden as any other state and certainly we want to partake in the process as well. >> host: and in terms of health care what are you advocating. what does puerto rico need? >> guest: certainly us governors want flexibility in the process but in terms of puerto rico specifically, i want to make sure in terms of medicaid we participate fully. right now we are capped at recently 17% federal contribution, whereas the minimum with states is 50%, and for states with our demographics its 83%. so we are putting up for the rest of the state level and that affects the health care of my constituents. secondly on medicare, again, our medical providers of physicians, hospitals and so on are not treated equally in many ways and i want to make sure that even though we are paying for medicare taxes on the payroll taxes that we get t